In the games

Agatha is a member of the Elite Four, and the oldest one to date. As such, she serves as an inspiration for senior Pokémon Trainers all around the region. She uses Ghost-type Pokémon, and other Pokémon with horrifying appearances.

Agatha and Professor Oak were once friendly rivals in their youth, and it appears that Agatha may have once had a crush on Oak. However, their relationship has grown bitter and strained over the years because Agatha believes he was too weak to continue competing.

She has a very short temper.

By the events of the Generation II and Generation IV games, Agatha is no longer a member of the Elite Four, and Bruno has assumed her position. Her absence is never explained.

Quotes

"I am Agatha of the Elite Four! <sc>Oak's taken a lot of interest in you, child! That old duff was once tough and handsome! That was decades ago! Now he just wants to fiddle with his Pokédex! He's wrong! Pokémon are for fighting! <player>! I'll show you how a real trainer fights!"

"I am Agatha of the Elite Four. I hear Oak's taken a lot of interest in you, child./You're the child that Oak's taken under his wing, aren't you? That old duff was once tough and handsome. But that was decades ago. He's a shadow of his former self. Now he just wants to fiddle with his Pokédex. He's wrong. Pokémon are for battling! <player>! I'll show you how a real Trainer battles!"

Being defeated

"Oh, my! You're something special, child!"

After being defeated

"You win! I see what the old duff sees in you now. I've nothing else to say. Run along now, child!"

In the anime

In the main series

While Ash was going through Viridian City on the way back to Pallet Town, he met up with Scott. Wanting to show Scott how strong he was, Ash challenged Agatha to a Gym battle. Despite maintaining top eight of the Ever Grande Conference, Ash lost to her Gengar with his Pikachu.

Although he lost, both Agatha and Scott were impressed. It was then that Agatha revealed to Ash that she is a member of the Elite Four. She and Scott both recommended Ash to challenge the Battle Frontier and the Frontier Brains.

She was first seen trying to take away Super Nerd Miles after he was defeated by Yellow and the Good Gym Leaders of Kanto. She was then seen in a flashback during the events of the previous chapter where she battled Blue and attempted to kill him due to his relation to Professor Oak by having her Gengar use Dream Eater to suck away his energy. He managed to escape though and a Haunter she stole from a Trainer named Ivan was also taken back. She then had her Haunter lead an army of Gastly to attack Cerulean City to delay Misty.

She fought against Blue and Koga, revealing an Arbok with the ability to change the pattern on its belly and use different corresponding abilities. She decided to divide Koga and Blue using her Arbok's Rock Slide and she had her Golbat attack Blue. After battling Koga's Arbok for a while Koga started throwing shuriken balls out of nowhere, which Agatha believed was a pitiful attempt to harm her, but was really an attempt to heal Blue's paralysis that Agatha caused using her Haunter's Lick. After that Blue rejoined the battle and Koga used his Golbat's Leech Life to collect his own blood and smeared it on Arbok's pattern, preventing it from changing anymore. While Agatha was presumably beaten, a second Arbok of hers attacked an unknowing Koga from behind, only to be stopped by Blue before it could land a Poison Sting attack. Agatha was subsequently defeated and seemingly vanished after her defeat, but not before she had her Gengar masquerade as Koga and Blue's shadow to slowly drain their energy, which was defeated as well. She then revealed that she was the one controlling the Pokémon armies of her peers by using special wrist bands to control them and she used these same bands to force Bruno to join the Elite Four as well.

Agatha used the mind-controlling powers of her Ghost-type Pokémon to control Bruno against his will. It is shown that she was the one who also recruited Lorelei by healing her Seel and then figuring out they have a common distaste of humans.

Her relationship with Professor Oak was also revealed when the two were younger. Oak defeated her in the finals for the Pokémon Championship and Agatha met him after the battle and asked why he quit their "research group". He explained that he wanted to create the Pokédex, which she thought was a stupid idea that would never be complete, and a battle ensued. Oak barely won after a battle that lasted several hours, with Agatha swearing a personal vendetta over him and anyone who associates with him.

Pokémon

This listing is of Agatha's Pokémon in the Pokémon Adventures manga.

Gastly (multiple)

Gastly is part of Agatha's Ghost army. They were used to attack the Kanto cities. Agatha also has her own Gastly outside of the army. The Gastly first appears as a dark fog lifting up Super Nerd Miles when he'd been beaten. Blue's Charizard was able to defeat Gastly by attacking out of nowhere, after which the boy deduces that the same Elite Four member whom he'd fought before was behind the scenes. In said battle, Blue's Scyther was used to Slash Gastly into pieces.

Arbok was sent out to battle Koga and Blue as it was their goal to try to defeat Agatha. Agatha's Arbok has several abilities activated by Agatha changing the patterns on its abdomen, including the speed boosting pattern, the attack boosting pattern, and the invulnerability pattern that repels poisons. However, its ability was nullified when its body was smeared with blood.

In the Pokémon Pocket Monsters manga

She is first seen as a Golbat spying on Red when he was getting on the Luxury Liner. After they boarded, Agatha transforms into a human and is very interested in Clefairy. She does everything to get Clefairy in obeying her. While on the ship, she causes the captain to collapse and makes Clefairy as the new captain. However, all of this turned out to be fake as Agatha only became interested in Clefairy was his health looked tasty. After sucking away Clefairy's health, Red finds out who she is and transforms into a Golbat. However, the health that Agatha drained from Clefairy turned out to not taste good and miniature versions of Clefairy escape Agatha's Golbat body. She was last seen in the water after the luxury liner got destroyed.

Pokémon

Golbat ♀

Agatha has the ability to transform into a Golbat. It first appeared when it was spying on Red and his Pokémon. It transformed into a human. Later, it was transformed back into a Golbat. It was last seen on a sunken cruise ship.

Pokémon

Trivia

Agatha, like the other members of the Elite Four, had a revamp in her character design in the Generation III games Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen. She is depicted as being taller, slightly younger, and her hair has changed color from gray to graying blonde.

Though she claims to specialize in the Ghost type, the common type shared by all her Pokémon in the main series games (except Misdreavus) is Poison. This is most likely because the only Ghost-types in Generation I were in the Gastly line.

In her first battle in FireRed and LeafGreen, all her Pokémon are female. In the second and subsequent battles, they are all male.

Names

Language

Name

Origin

Japanese

キクコ Kikuko

From 菊 kiku, chrysanthemum.

English, French,Italian, Spanish

Agatha

Possibly from aghast, ghost, gothic, or hag.May also be a reference to popular British crime writer Agatha Christie.

German

Agathe

From the English given name.

Korean

국화 Gukhwa*

From 국화 (菊花), chrysanthemum

할멈 Halmeom*

Literally means old woman.

Chinese(Taiwan)

菊子 Júzǐ*

From the name 菊子 Kikuko. Literally means "Chrysanthemum child".

喜久子Xǐjiǔzi*

From the Japanese name 喜久子 Kikuko. 久 also means "long time", possibly a reference to her age.

紀久子Jìjiǔzi*

From the Japanese name 紀久子 Kikuko. Both 紀 and 久 are also words related to age.